White.
Everything was white.
White ceiling. White walls. White sheets. The sterile white of hospital rooms and second chances and lives saved when they should have ended.
The beeping was what told Scarlett she was still alive. That steady, rhythmic sound of machines monitoring a heart that should have stopped beating. A heart she'd driven a knife through, trying to free herself the only way left.
She'd failed.
Even in death, she couldn't escape.
Scarlett turned her head slowly, taking inventory of her prison. Different room. Same cage. Medical equipment surrounded her bed—IV drips, monitors, machines whose purposes she didn't know and didn't care to learn.
And there, in the chair beside her bed, was him.
Sylus sat slumped forward, elbows on his knees, face buried in his hands. He looked... wrong. His usually immaculate appearance was destroyed—shirt wrinkled and stained with what might have been blood, hair disheveled, shoulders curved in defeat.
He looked like a man who'd watched his entire world end.
Good, a bitter voice whispered in Scarlett's mind. Let him suffer. Let him feel a fraction of what he's put me through.
But even that voice sounded tired now. Worn down. Too exhausted for real hatred.
Scarlett shifted slightly, and the movement must have made a sound—or maybe he'd just been waiting, hyperaware of every change, every sign that she might be waking.
Sylus's head snapped up.
For a moment, they just looked at each other. His red eyes were bloodshot, surrounded by dark circles that spoke of days without sleep. His face was haggard, aged by grief and fear in a way that should have been impossible for someone like him.
Then he smiled.
It was soft. Gentle. Relieved in a way that made something twist painfully in Scarlett's chest.
He looked like a man who'd been granted a miracle he didn't deserve.
"You're awake," he said quietly. His voice was hoarse, scraped raw. "You're alive."
Scarlett said nothing. Just turned her head to look at the other side of the room. At the window showing gray sky. At anything except him and that relieved smile that made her feel things she didn't want to feel.
She was alive. Unfortunately.
Still trapped. Still his. Still—
"Scarlett." Something in his tone made her look back despite herself. Sylus was leaning forward now, his hands clasped together so tightly his knuckles had gone white. "I need to tell you something."
She waited. Silent. What else could he possibly say? What words could possibly matter after everything?
Sylus took a deep breath. When he spoke, each word sounded like it was being pulled from somewhere deep inside him. Somewhere it hurt to reach.
"After you're fully healed... I'm going to let you go."
Scarlett went absolutely still."even if it means destroying me," he continued softly. "Even if it kills me to watch you walk away. Even if every instinct I have screams at me to keep you locked away and safe."
His red eyes met hers, and she saw something she'd never seen there before. Acceptance. Surrender. "I'm going to let you go, Scarlett."
This was a trick. Had to be a trick. Another mind game, another manipulation, another way to break her down and build her back up in whatever shape he wanted.
How pathetic, her mind whispered, and she saw him flinch slightly. Could he really hear her thoughts? Or had he just gotten that good at reading her face?
"I won't chain you in my mansion anymore," Sylus said. He reached into his pocket slowly and pulled out a key card. Set it on the table beside her bed.
"That's for your house. I bought it last week. Small. Quiet. Near the university so you can finish your degree. It's yours. No strings attached".
Scarlett stared at the key card like it might bite her.
"It's not complete freedom," he admitted. "I can't give you that. My enemies know we're married now. They know about your Aether core. If I just let you disappear, they'd hunt you down within days." His hands clenched. "So I'll have men watching your house. Keeping you safe from a distance. But they won't enter. Won't follow you around like before. You'll have privacy. Space. A life."
He pulled out something else—a black card. Credit card. He set it next to the key. "Money. However much you need. For school, for living expenses, for anything you want. You don't have to take it if you don't want to. But it's there."
Scarlett couldn't speak. Couldn't process what she was hearing. This had to be a dream. A hallucination brought on by blood loss and trauma and desperate hope.
"You can go anywhere you want," Sylus continued, his voice getting softer. More broken. "See anyone you want. Do anything you want. Live your life. I won't stop you. Won't demand your time or your presence or anything." He swallowed hard. "All I ask is that you let my men keep you safe. Let me know you're alive. That's all."
"Why?" The word came out as barely more than a whisper. Scarlett's first word in days, rough and disused.
"Because you were right." Sylus's smile was bittersweet. Devastating. "The dragon you loved would have let you die free. Would have let you fly, even knowing you might fall. Even knowing it would destroy him." He reached out slowly, giving her time to pull away, and brushed a strand of hair from her face with infinite gentleness. "I'm not him. Not yet. But I'm trying to be."
Scarlett felt something crack in her chest. Not pain this time. Something else. Something she couldn't name."I've been holding onto you so tightly I've been crushing you," he whispered. "Trying so hard to keep you safe that I've been killing you myself. And I can't—I can't watch you die again, Scarlett. Not like that. Not choosing death over me. Over us. Over everything."
His hand fell away. "So I'm letting you go. Giving you the freedom you've been fighting for. Even if it means I never see you again. Even if it means spending the rest of my life knowing you're out there, alive and free and hating me." His voice cracked. "At least you'll be alive."
For the first time since she'd woken up, Scarlett really looked at him. Not at the monster who'd kidnapped her. Not at the dragon who'd caged her. But at the man beneath all that.
The man who looked like he'd been torn apart and badly stitched back together.
The man who'd spent a thousand years searching for her, only to destroy her when he finally found her.
The man who was now willingly breaking his own heart to give her what she needed.
Scarlett felt tears prick her eyes. She didn't know why she was crying. Didn't know if it was relief or grief or something more complicated that she couldn't name.
But for the first time in weeks, she felt something other than emptiness.
She felt... hope.
Fragile. Tentative. Almost frightening in its possibility.
But hope nonetheless.
"After I'm healed?" she whispered.
"After you're healed." Sylus nodded.
"The Aether core is already working. The doctors say another week, maybe two, and you'll be strong enough to leave. Until then, rest. Recover." He stood slowly, like an old manof the powerful crime lord he was.
"I'll make sure everything is ready for you."
He turned to leave, and Scarlett didn't know what possessed her—didn't know where the impulse came from, didn't understand why she did it.
But she reached out. Caught his hand. Felt him freeze under her touch.
"Sylus."
He looked back, and the hope in his eyes was almost painful to see.
Scarlett pulled gently. He resisted for a moment, confused, then let her guide him closer. Back to the bed. Close enough that she could reach him.
Then, with movements that felt almost dreamlike, Scarlett pulled him into an embrace.
Her arms went around his neck, thin and weak from weeks of not eating properly, but they held him nonetheless. Pulled him close until his face was pressed against her shoulder.
She hugged him.
Willingly. Deliberately. The first time she'd ever touched him of her own choice.
Because he was letting her go.
Sylus went absolutely rigid. Like he'd forgotten how to breathe. How to move. How to be anything except frozen in disbelief.
Then his arms came around her slowly, carefully, like he was afraid she might shatter. Or disappear. Or realize what she was doing and push him away.
He held her like she was made of glass. Like she was precious beyond measure. Like this moment was the most valuable thing he'd ever possessed and he knew it would end too soon.
And oh, his heart was breaking. She could feel it in the way he trembled slightly. Could hear it in the shaky breath he drew in. Could sense it in the way his hands clutched at the back of her hospital gown like he was drowning and she was the only thing keeping him afloat.
Breaking and healing at the same time.
Because she was choosing this. Choosing to touch him. Choosing to hold him, even if only for a moment. Choosing to acknowledge what he was giving her with this simple, voluntary embrace.
"Thank you," Scarlett whispered against his shoulder.made a sound that might have been a sob. Might have been a laugh. Might have been both at once.
"Don't thank me," he whispered back. "Don't thank me for finally doing what I should have done from the beginning." His arms tightened fractionally. "I'm so sorry, Scarlett. For everything. For all of it."
"I know."
They stayed like that for a long moment. Two broken people holding each other in a sterile white room, snow falling outside the window, the steady beep of medical equipment counting out seconds that felt like both eternity and not nearly long enough.
Then Scarlett released him slowly. Let her arms fall away. Let him go.Sylus pulled back, and his face was wet with tears he hadn't tried to hide. He looked at her like she'd just given him the greatest gift imaginable and simultaneously destroyed him completely.
"Rest," he said softly, standing. "Heal. And then..." He managed a smile. Small. Sad. Final. "And then you're free."
He walked to the door. Stopped with his hand on the handle.
"I loved you across lifetimes," he said without turning around. "I'll love you until the stars burn out. And if letting you go is the only way to prove it, then... then that's what I'll do."
Then he was gone.
And Scarlett lay in her hospital bed, staring at the key card and the credit card on the table beside her. Physical proof of an impossible promise.
Freedom.
Her freedom.
She was going to be free.
The tears came then. Not the silent, empty tears from before. But something else. Something that felt almost like release.
She pressed her hand to her chest, feeling her heartbeat beneath bandages and healing flesh. The heart she'd tried to stop. The heart that kept beating despite everything.
Maybe... maybe she wanted to keep living after all.
Not for him. Never for him.
But for herself.
For the chance to have her own life, make her own choices, exist as something other than a caged bird in a golden prison.
Two weeks. She just had to survive two more weeks.
And then she'd be free.
Scarlett closed her eyes and, for the first time in weeks, let herself hope.
Even if hope was dangerous.
Even if freedom came with hidden costs she couldn't yet see.
Even if the dragon who'd finally learned to let go would be waiting, broken-hearted and patient, for a thousand years if that's what it took.
At least she'd be alive to see it.
And sometimes, that was enough.
.
.
.
.
.
To be continued.